


Sana Song

by Bellybits



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Cuban Lance (Voltron), Domestic, Dont worry its in chapter three and described by someone deep in shock, Drabble, Fluff, M/M, Slightly - Freeform, pure fluffy good feelings, slight gore
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-09
Updated: 2017-08-29
Packaged: 2018-12-13 01:24:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11749209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bellybits/pseuds/Bellybits
Summary: Lance just wants his friends to be happy and healthy, and if making a goofus of himself and singing a dumb children's song helps then so be it!





	1. Hunk

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Voltron fic, and let it be known that I am not Cuban (and I don't really speak Spanish all that well) so if there's anything inaccurate or offensive in here don't be afraid to tell me! 
> 
> I'm not sure if this is gonna be a one-shot or a five plus one kind of deal. I had this idea and ran with it, so let me know if I should keep going!

Lance has his hand pressed up against the glass of a healing pod. It’s occupied, as they often were after a battle with the Galra. He’s watching Hunk’s hair slowly drift about as if he's underwater. His injury is nothing serious, just a broken toe, but Allura and Shiro agreed that it would be best for Voltron if everyone was in tip top shape. 

He sighs as his fingers press small grooves into the flexible surface, Shiro had called it willow glass, a strange sensation compared to the firmness that Lance associates with glass.

Fragileness too. 

Fragile like his friend currently sealed inside.

As much as Lance has faith in the abilities of his teammates, he can’t help but see how close to death they are at any given time. Humans are squishy and soft, they are not meant to be outside the safety of Terra’s atmosphere. 

Terra, the name the interstellar travelers gave Earth, is something of a bitter hole of affection for the paladins. A place they once thought was the pinnacle of war and tragedy, now feels like just a paintball course. Lance is glad his family is there, and not up in space where Zarkon and his goons would snuff them without a second thought. 

He looks back up at Hunk’s calm face, a smile twitching across his tan skin. Hunk was the only thing close to real family he had with him, the other paladins had a bond more similar to close family friends, and no one has known him longer than Hunk.

A thought pops into Lance’s head, a song his mama would sing to him and his siblings when they got bruises and scrapes, something that occurred quite often in his clumsy youth. Maybe, even in his false sleep, Hunk would feel better if he heard it too.

Lance kneels down to where Hunk’s foot rests, glad to see the swelling and purple bruising of his toe almost gone. He presses his hand back into the willow glass and takes a breath.

“Hey buddy, I know this Altean medical magic is doing its thing. But maybe a lil diddy from your good pal Lance will help too, huh?” 

Hunk’s face doesn't outwardly change but Lance thinks he sees a blip in his brain activity on the panel attached to the pod. 

“Sana que sana, Colita de rana. Si no sanas hoy, Sanáras mañana.” Lance sings.

The familiar words fill him with the worst mixture of fuzzy nostalgia and grief. He misses home, singing with his family and eating real Cuban food. No offense to Hunk’s cooking skills, he managed to whip up a pretty close facsimile with his goo voodoo, but nothing really compares to the real thing.

He doesn't realize how much weight he’s putting on his hands till the pod beeps irritably at him. 

“Oops, sorry castle.” Lance chuckles. Great, now he’s apologizing to a non-sentient machine.

“You know that the castle can’t hear you right?”

Lance startles at the sudden voice behind him, his knee loses traction and he ends up falling forward, mushing his face into the flexible glass and leaving a Lance shaped divot. 

Lance twists around to glare at whoever interrupted his tender moment with the healing pod, he stops short when his eyes land on Keith’s soft grin. Lance returns the look, feeling a little too big in his own skin.

“Yeah, we’ll see who’s laughing when the machines turn against us, mullet man.”

Keith snorts and starts towards him and the pod, he's not wearing his jacket. 

“Don’t let Pidge hear you say that she’ll start on another tirade about the ethics of ‘true’ AI’s.” Keith lifts his hands to do little air quotes when he says ‘true’, Lance has to admit it's cute as hell. 

“Well, she didn't see the time Shiro’s robot arm karate chopped me on its own!”

“Lance I’m pretty sure Shiro was just making an excuse to get you to focus.” 

Keith is by Lance’s side now, he sinks down till he’s kneeling next to him, their thighs a good three inches apart. He looks a lot softer without his jacket, the sharp planes of his face and shoulders rounded, he looks comfy.

“Don’t worry about Hunk, he's had way worse than a broken toe,” Keith side eyes him, “and maybe whatever little spell you just cast on him will help too.”

Lance cringes, he was kinda hoping that Keith hadn’t heard him singing to Hunk’s foot. 

“What does it mean anyway?”

“That Hunk has had worse injuries than a broken toe? I don’t know man, probably that our line of work is too dangerous for teenagers to be in?” He's trying to dodge the question.

“Lance.”

He sighs, drags a hand down his face. The Sana song isn’t a big secret or anything, but it is a part of his life that he hadn’t really wanted to expose the team too, his corny traditions that he can’t quite drop even light years away from home. 

“Don’t worry about it man, superstition and all that.” 

Keith doesn't look satisfied by the answer, but he seems to sense that it's a sore subject and doesn't press. 

Keith huffs out a small chuckle and stands back up. “Well don’t stay here too long, Coran says it’s almost time for dinner.”

“Alright, I’ll catch up with you in a little bit,” Lance says, as he pulls his gaze from Keith and up to Hunk’s face in the pod. Keith squeezes his shoulder and turns to leave, his footsteps quietly echoing out of the infirmary and down the hall. 

He gives the pod one last affectionate pat, smiling as the pod chirps something in Altean and shows a screen with a tick timer counting down. Hunk is safe, and he’d be back soon.


	2. Pidge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, I've decided to continue this story! Thank you so much for your support, I hope I can keep doing our favorite boy justice.

There's a bruise on Pidges forehead, dead center, bright as a candy apple. It’s… Pretty hilarious actually. Lance is having a very hard time keeping his snickers contained, his cheeks puffing out and tinting red. 

Oh man, if he breaks right now Pidge will kill him, then Shiro will give him a dad lecture on respect again. 

They’re on the training deck. They were supposed to be practicing ‘improvised’ hand to hand combat. Which roughly translates to Coran throwing a bunch of random junk onto the mats and spawning little barricades and pedestals for them to hide behind and jump off of. 

Lance had been, admittedly, a bit nervous. He wasn’t very good at fighting without his bayard, not having a ranged weapon made him feel vulnerable. He didn’t like getting to the portion of a fight where people got all up in his grill, preferring to stand back and take out threats from a clear vantage point. He was good at that.

But much to his surprise, and everyone else's dismay, Coran happened to throw a perfectly weighted six-foot hollow pole into the pile of non-weapons. A pole that resembled almost perfectly, a color guard flag. Lance had been in the garrisons color guard, not the military one; no he was in the one that went out with the marching bands covered in glitter and velveteen pants.

Obviously, the Garrison had been a space and technology based campus, but they at least recognized the need to have some sort of recreation that wasn't mind numbingly boring.

So lance had picked color guard. Not only did he get to dress up and perform, but he got to throw rifles and sabers around too, how freaking cool it that?

He was having a jolly time twirling the pole around as the team got into sparring positions. Coran had instructed them from the observation deck to try and disarm each other as quickly as they could. 

Shiro stood off to the side, seeing as all of his fighting technically counted as improvised, what with the robot arm that couldn’t really be knocked out without real damage. 

Keith and Hunk were squared up to one another. Hunk had a battleship seatbelt, a thick nylon strap about two feet long with a heavy metal buckle. He was swinging it around like a flail, Lance was really glad he wasn’t in Keith’s place, that thing looked straight up deadly in the large paladin's hands. Keith's weapon looked a bit less intimidating, like a mix of a nightstick and a noise maker you would use on New Years. 

Pidge coughed from her place in front of him.

“Lance, you look like you’re trying to set Keith's hair on fire. As much as we all agree he needs a haircut, laser vision seems a bit extra.” She said as she tossed her weapon between her hands.

 

It didn’t look like much of anything really, a hollow pole like Lance’s but curved at the middle into a soft v shape. 

Coran’s voice boomed out over them, catching their attention.

“Alright, Paladins! I’m setting a timer for eighty ticks, whichever one of you is still holding your object at the end is the winner and gets to pick their new weapon first!” He sounded entirely too chipper.

Lance snapped his pole from the gentle drop spins he’d been doing to a more protective position. One tip at his hip, the other at the opposite shoulder with one hand palm up and one palm down. His eyes narrowed as Pidge stepped towards him and lifted her own pole.

The melee was short, they glanced their weapons off of one another. Lance was trying to put enough muscle in to force pidge to loosen her grip but not hurt her. 

As they circled each other Lance’s focus drifted to Keith and Hunk as they fought. Hunk had charged forward with his belt, aiming for the hand that Keith had his club in. In a flash Keith lashed out, the club spinning horizontally on the axis of its handle, and caught the Hunk’s strap mid strike. He twisted and yanked hard, causing Hunk to stumble forward stomach first into Keith’s sharp elbow. 

The belt slipped from Hunk’s hand as he fought to get his breath back. He chuffed through his panting, a small smile on his face despite the defeat.

Lance jolted as Pidge rushed him and hooked the curve of her pole over his staff. Maybe he should have been paying more attention. She wrenched her hands in opposite directions, forcing Lance to lose his grip as his staff was twisted violently. Unfortunately for Pidge, as she levered the pole out of Lance’s hands the end near his hip swung up towards her face.

Before Lance could shout out a warning Pidge was kneeling on the ground spitting curses as she clutched at her forehead. He winced in sympathy, all too familiar with that pain from years of color guard mishaps.

“Wait, wait, time out! Number five you ok there?” Coran’s worried voice echoed down to the deck.

“Just peachy.” Pidge groused through her teeth.

Lance dropped down beside his teammate, hands fluttering uselessly around her head with worry.

“Pidge I’m so sorry!” Lance fretted. She swatted irritably at his hands, surreptitiously wiping tears from her eyes. 

“It’s fine Lance,” she mumbled. The red mark was blossoming into a lovely shade of purple.

Suddenly Shiro was kneeling with them too, telling pidge to follow his finger as he checked to make sure she wasn’t concussed.

Lance chewed on his lip, Hunk and Keith were coming over as well concern etched onto their faces. It made sense, Lance did just maim the baby of the team

When Shiro deemed her not gravely injured Pidge attempted to shoo away the flock of mother hens she had accumulated, pressing an ice pack Coran had brought down for her to her head.

“Guys really I’m fine. I expected Lance to have a firmer grip on his shaft is all.” She had a teasing smirk on her face.

Lance gasped in false offense. “You know what! I was gonna sing and kiss it all better for you like a good mami but now I don’t think I will! Shamed by my own child.” He crossed his arms over his chest and puffed out his cheeks in the most dramatic way he could.

Apparently, he looked like enough of an idiot to lighten the mood, Hunk chuckled and dug his elbow into the crown of Lance’s head.

“Come on dude you know you're gonna do it anyway.” Hunk prodded.

Pidge looked on curious, her head tilted to the side like a puppy, it was kind of adorable. 

Lance let his expression fall into a soft smile, feeling a wave of fraternal affection wash over him for his pseudo sister.

He pried the ice pack out of Pidge’s hand and set it next to their knees. Lance waved his hand over her head as he chanted the Sana song, like he did for Hunk in the healing pod. He leaned forward when he finished and pressed an obnoxiously loud smooch to her bruise, cackling as she shrieked in response.

“Alright, now that we know number five isn't going to perish from head collapse, everyone back up! Let's keep this training rolling! Paladins, grab a new weapon and swap partners.” Coran said, he and Lance helped Pidge back to her feet and Shiro ruffled her hair. Both of the older men had fond smiles.

“Come on kiddo, you can watch with me for a few rounds.” Shiro offered, settling a gentle hand on Pidge’s shoulder.

Shiro, Coran, and Pidge stood off to the side as the three remaining paladins rooted through the garbage still scattered on the floor. Lance perked up when Keith spoke up.

“How are we supposed to pair up now? There's an odd number.” Keith’s face was weirdly pinched, like how he looked when Lance and Hunk were several layers deep in inside jokes and no one understood what they were even talking about anymore. 

“I think I can spare some time to help my paladins.”

Lance whipped around as Allura swept into the room, brandishing a staff and dressed in her battle attire.

Coran choked on a gawf, he cleared his throat and spoke up from the side. “Alright Princess, how about you go with Lance, I think he’s up for the challenge after hurting number five here.”

Lance gulped, Allura stepped up to him with a shark like grin showing off her row of pointed teeth. He was in for a rough time.


	3. Lance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a bit more gruesome than the first two. There's descriptions of a pretty gross injury, some blood and such. If that squicks you out the only graphic and explicit mention is between, "Apparently neither of them.." and "The rest was a fuzzy mess..." 
> 
> Let me know if this reads ok, I'm trying to making whos talking and doing what more clear. Otherwise, enjoy!

There’s blood running down his forehead. 

Shiro has his hands on Lance’s shoulders, he’s shaking him saying something about getting back to the castle before the Galra cruiser blows. 

Lance can’t focus, he can feel the blood running down the line of his own nose. It's drying hard and crystalline in his left eyebrow, pinching as he furrows his brow and tries to remember what he’d just been doing. A gush of blood follows the movement, aggravated both by Shiro’s shaking and Lance’s expression.

“Lance, Lance come on! I know you’re scared and probably in pain. It’ll be fine as soon as we get off this ship, but we have to get off now!” Shiro yells, panic seeping into his tone as the paladin in front of him remains unresponsive.

They’re on a Galra ship, Lance remembers this much, they were doing something looking for something that Kolivan had mentioned. What was it? It had to be important if they’re risking blowing themselves up for it.

More blood drips down his face as Shiro gives up trying to rouse him, slinging Lance’s body over his shoulder. 

They’re running now, a headache is growing as Lance bounces to Shiro’s pace. Spatters of blood are raining down from his head every step. 

Lance watches in a daze as a trail follows them, appearing like the red dashes on a map in an Indiana Jones movie. It's been a long time since he’s seen those movies, he wonders if they’ve aged well.

Shiro’s talking to someone. Lance jerks as he realizes that they’re no longer running, instead they’re in Black’s cockpit. 

His shoulders are pinned between Shiro’s knees, he’s saying something about there not being another seatbelt. That Lance can’t sit up himself, something about shock too? He doesn't think Shiro is talking to him, probably into the comm of his helmet. 

Who’s in shock? Lance hopes it’s not Keith. He’s unsure why the red paladin is the first to his mind, but he can’t focus on that train of thought for much more than a second as his vision swirls around him like a rotoscope. 

When he can open his eyes again all he can see is orange. Orange and blue, making a weird looking smiley face in front of him. 

Lance’s head drifts to the side and the smiley face lunges forward to keep him steady. Now that it’s closer Lance determines that no, an emoji has not come to life, but that Coran’s concerned face is very, very close to his.

There are frantic words swimming by his head.

Staples... No, staple gun. No time for stitches. Blood loss. Damaged capillaries. Scalped. 

Scalped? Now that’s a funny word. It sounds like scalloped, scallops were one of Lance’s favorite foods. He would catch them with his siblings in Varadero; his father had a fishing vessel that he used to trawl for seafood. They made good money selling to the fancy hotels that took up much of the coastline; tourists loved to pay two hundred convertible pesos for something the McClain’s cooked for five. 

He’s pulled from his reminiscing at the sound of Hunk vomiting. 

That’s odd, they weren't even moving. 

Maybe he ate something bad. Lance tries to look up when he feels tugging on his hair, but there’s a brown hand holding a pink towel blocking his view.

Wait no, it’s a magenta towel.

Red. 

“I’m sorry about that number two, I’ve got to make sure that there’s no debris. It could cause infection, or worse poke through later!” Coran sounds very chipper, maybe it’s to distract from the sudden cold Lance feels on his crown… Whatever it is that caused it

The maroon towel is pulled away by the dark hand. 

He still can’t see what the fuss is about, but he hears the gentle clicks of the staple gun. Are they stapling something? Maybe they’re making some kind of debrief packet for the mission, but they’re not in the common room where they usually gather. Huh.

Coran pulls him forward into his chest. Awe, is it post battle hug time? Lance tries to pull his arms around the advisor in return but finds that he can’t even make his fingers twitch.

He feels very tired all of the sudden. Cold too. Like he’s been dipped in peppermints and sleepytime tea. He sees his breath fogging before him, condensing on some kind of barrier an inch from his sharp nose. 

 

He decides he’s done noticing things for the day as a comforting hum overruns the voices from his team. 

Maybe a nap is ok, he can figure out what’s going on when he wakes up.

⨦⨦⨦⨦⨦⨦⨦

There’s a ticking noise, fading in and out at a sharp staccato.

It’s annoying as all hell.

The ticking keeps up, quicker, more urgent. 

It sounds like the standard alarm clock the Garrison had in the dorms. Lance always hated those clocks.

The ticking hits its peak, smoothing into a single note as a light flashes behind his eyelids and a woosh of air blasts past his face.

Lance makes the executive decision to go with the woosh. It definitely wasn’t because he had a case of the cryo pod jelly knees. 

He’s happy to find himself mushed into the familiar chub of Hunks chest. 

Lance pries his eyes open as a chorus of voices spring to life around him.

“Lance! Buddy! I was so worried, you were like some kind of Zombie yesterday. Like you were replaced with a pod person, which in retrospect everyone here is a pod person considering we’ve all spent a good share of time in these things-” Hunk chitters into his ear.

“Hunk, I’m sure Lance has no idea what you’re talking about. Let him get his barrings.” Shiro says, a smile is evident in his voice as his mech and flesh hands land solidly on both of their shoulders.

Hunk sniffs and helps Lance rebalance, allowing him to see the smiling faces of the rest of his team. They're in the infirmary, standing in a loose semi circle around his pod.

The day before comes shuttering back, little bits and pieces from the mission. They’d been looking for a way to prove that Zarkon was dead, not knowing if the blast from the battle had actually killed him or just left him wounded. Kolivan had mentioned that a good place to start would be a records file on a cruiser. They could find out what Haggar had told the fleet and build up a theory from there.

It had been going fine. Easy recon with their resident sharpshooter on lookout as the rest of the team scouted for a computer that Pidge could hook into.

Until Lance missed a guard sneaking up behind him. They had kicked his knees out and grabbed him by the hair to keep him still. He had felt the sharp edge of their dagger against his temple, uncomfortably close to his left eyeball.

There had been a noise, a flurry of movement as Keith and Hunk rushed into the room and did.. Something to the guard.

Apparently neither of them had seen the knife until it had skittered across the floor, along with a spray of blood as the guard separated half of Lance’s scalp from his head.

The rest was a fuzzy mess of pain and sharp colors.

Shiro and Allura filled in the details as Coran sat him down and began pulling the staples from his hairline. He couldn’t really feel it, but the disgust on Hunk’s face was enough to tell him it was probably pretty gruesome. 

“At least you have a cool new scar?” Pidge called from the side. A smile tickled Lance’s mouth and a small round of laughter rippled through the group.

“Please tell me I’m still beautiful? How's my money maker? It’s all I have!” Lance pleaded, he stuck out his bottom lip and wobbled it for effect.

Coran chuckled as he put down his tools. He pulled off his rubber gloves and gave Lance a hearty pat on the back.

“Yes! I’ve heard that many species find battle scars very attractive.” He's pulling at his mustache as he says this, eyes skipping not so subtly towards where Keith is leaning against a counter. 

Keith’s face flares a dusty pink, and he rubs hastily at the back of his neck. Interesting...

“I’m glad you’re ok. You look just as stupid as before, don’t worry.” Keith manages to mutter out as he valiantly avoids eye contact.

Hunk slides up next to Lance, gently cupping his elbow as he stands from the exam bench. He leans down and stage whispers to Lance.

“He’s just prickly because he couldn’t remember the song you sang for Pidge and I. He insisted that we knew and just weren’t telling him to spite him.” Hunk is doing a shit job of holding back his laughter as he tells Lance this.

Keith’s face graduates from pink to crimson. 

Lance saunters forward, as well as he can, and bumps his shoulder playfully into Keith's.

“Don’t sweat it, Mullet. Maybe next time one of us gets hurt I’ll teach it to you.” Lance offers, he feels the tips of his ears go red. 

This is the first time he’s admitted to there being any real meaning behind his little chant, much less share all the goofy verses. 

He could feel Hunk’s curious gaze on the back of his head, he was the only other one up there that knew the sentimentalism behind the song. 

Maybe it was time to let his little circle of trust grow.


	4. Allura

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've decided to go a little different with this chapter than I had planned. Also I'm sorry its late and I've started other stories before finishing this one lmao.
> 
> Theres more Spanish in this chapter, I don't know much spanish so if I've butchered this let me know!

Lance tries his best to find comfort in the little things. He takes care of his skin, hair, and nails on the regular. Pidge has her robots and Hunk has his food, Shiro and Coran trade war stories and Keith will work himself past exhaustion on the training deck. Lance’s thing may not be the most productive or macho, but it made him feel better when he was falling apart at the seams.

 

Allura apparently understood that this was what he needed, she hadn’t laughed him away when he showed up at her room asking if the castle had anything that could synthesize cosmetics. She had taken him to what the team affectionately called the room of requirement, shown him the mass spectrometer that would analyze the products he wanted to reproduce and how to use it. 

 

He kept going to her after that, asking her opinions on different skin treatments and bouncing ideas for making new pigments off her big brain. She wasn’t as invested in beauty regimes as he was but she seemed to enjoy the benign interactions. When he asked her to help him with one thing or another Allura would happily agree, she even gave him one of the vanities from the royal chambers to keep in his quarters. They would sit on the couches in her room and he would complain about little things, how space dried out his skin or breaking out from stress.She would listen as she smeared some kind of mud and fruit puree Hunk insisted was safe onto his cheeks fingers gentle around the scar tracing his hairline. Every once in awhile Lance would gently nudge the mice away from where they were curiously sniffing at a bowl of... Something green that smelled vaguely of the food goo they ate. 

 

It was a comforting routine, to sit and have Allura help him with his little routine. But she’d never accepted his offers to reciprocate, muttering something about grooming traditions and some alien faux pas he must have unknowingly committed. Maybe it was something only lovers did and she was comfortable helping him because he was human. He had no clue.

 

Allura had natural hair, a loose 3b that she worked hard to maintain. It reminded Lance of his niece Blanca, his older sisters young daughter who hung off of Lance whenever she came to visit. Lance watches as the Princess struggles to smooth some kind of space oil through her long curls, and offers once again to help. Imagine his surprise when she curtly accepts his offer, a small pout frustration on her face. He folds his legs under himself and sits gently behind her on the couch, taking the pick from her hands and starting at the tips carefully detangles the section she had been working with. 

 

It was comforting for him to take care of his own beauty routines, but helping Allura with hers brought him back to the house he had lived on in Varadero. The times when his father went out trawling seafood to sell to resorts, his mama worked in her hair salon on the tourist strip. It was a small shop that opened to an awning that she stationed Blanca and Lance to lure in spring breakers to get their hair braided. He’d missed the comforting repetitive nature of caring for someone else.

 

“Do you want me to do your hair up?” Lance offers, he had finished distributing the oil in the section Allura needed but he didn’t want this little bonding moment to end. Allura startles from wherever her mind had wandered to while he worked.

 

“Oh! Well, I’m not sure. I haven’t had someone else style my hair since..” Allura tapered off, pulling at the springy curls that hung next to her ears. The light atmosphere that had been in the air dulled a little bit as she struggled to swallow her grief, Lance's thoughts of his own family float away as concern for Allura rises in his chest.

 

Lance drops the bundle of hair he had in his hands, chewing at his lip as he searched for comforting words. He didn’t have this same kind of grief in him, he hadn’t lost his entire species to a genocidal maniac. Lance wasn’t sure how he could help Allura, he wasn’t exactly known to have to most tact on the team. 

 

“Allura, I don’t know what you’re going through- I won't pretend that I can. But... Maybe I can just listen? It might make you feel better to talk to someone about it,” he chews on his lip.

“Tell me about Altea, Coran’s told me about some stuff but I’m pretty sure they were just old man stories,” Lance says, he reaches up to where her ears met her head on either side and starts pulling coils of hair back towards the nape of her neck. He was thinking maybe some crown twist braids.

 

He can't see her face, but he hears Allura give a watery sniff and nods her head.

 

“Don’t let him hear you calling him old, I don’t think I can handle Coran having a mid life cycle panic.” She chuckles, pushing a small box of pins and hair ties behind her to Lance.

 

“Altea is.. Altea was beautiful. It had mountains bathed in the Talzacl’e mists that roamed our planet. There were skyways full of merchant ships and travelers from across the universe. We were a culture hub, with citizens from hundreds of planets…” 

 

As she spoke Lance worked on her hair, taking care not to pull too hard. He sighs in relief when her shoulders slowly settle down. He tugs the puffy braids across each other and slips pins in, securing the long tails into a heart shape on the back of her head. He finishes fiddling with her hair long before she finally tapers off from her reminiscing, but he doesn't tell her to stop.

 

Allura looks over her shoulder at Lance, viscous turquoise tears slowly crawling down her dark cheeks. But she has fire in her eyes and a bright smile on her face, pointed teeth shining with the love for her lost planet. Maybe Lance finally did something right in regards to other peoples feelings.

 

She brought her hands up to brush lightly over her new updo and her smile turns soft. She was beautiful, but not in the way that made Lance's face get flushed and tingly. If he ignored the glowing marks under her eyes and across her shoulders she looks ripped right out of the McClain house. 

 

She looked like one of his sisters. He feels his eyes start to water.

 

“Thank you for telling me, I know that must have been hard.” His voice cracks in the middle of the sentence and his cheeks spark with shame. 

 

He yelps as she turns fully and wraps him in her arms, squeezing with what must have been a tiny fraction of her true strength. He carefully brings his own to rest gently against her upper back, pressing his forehead into her collar bone. 

 

“ _ Ustedes se han convertido en las hermanas que mi duele por.. _ _ ”  _ Lance warbles quietly, he shudders out a breath as Allura rubs a small circle on his back. Guilt settles in his stomach, he was supposed to be her shoulder to cry on not the other way.

 

“Lance, I’m not sure if the translators are working correctly but.. I need family more than anything right now, you and the other paladins are my new family. I’m very happy that you see me as a sibling.” Allura comforts as she pulls Lance’s face from her neck. She gently squishes his cheeks together forcing his trembling mouth into a pucker that made them both spill into quiet laughter. 

 

“Thank you for listening to my heartache Lance, and for doing my hair so well. Coran tries but he's absolutely awful with any hair that isn't as straight as Lalet stems.” Allura chuckles. She lets go Lance’s face and they both wipe the sorrow from their eyes. 

 

“Anytime Princess… If you want your hair to be blessed with my mad skills again just leave it to Lancy Lance.” He offers, shooting a set of finger guns at her as he stands up from her couch. 

 

“Dinner should be ready soon, wanna go see what Hunk had magicked up for us tonight?” Lance offers as he holds out a hand to help Allura up.

 

Allura is quiet as she takes his hand, and hauls herself to her feet. She pats her skirts down and beams at him.

 

“Lead the way,  _ Frateto.” _

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rough translations  
> "Ustedes se han convertido en las hermanas que mi duele por.." - You have become the sisters my heart aches for.
> 
> I've decided to use Esperanto in place of some Altean words just so I can keep things straight.
> 
> "Frateto"- Little brother


End file.
